A construction tile is used for covering floors, walls and many other applications. A construction tile is made of a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal or glass, and it can come in different shapes and designs.
Proper installment of tiles is challenging because of the need to leveling and alignment of each tile with its neighboring ones, in order to provide a smooth and uninterrupted look. Tile installers spend a significant amount of time to level and adjust the tiles. And still in many cases the final result is not acceptable and the job has to be done again.
Tile leveling and adjustment is time consuming and cumbersome because of several factors. For this purpose different tile leveling devices are invented to help this process. One commonly used tile leveling device is a wedge having a set of teeth on it top surface, insertion of the wedge inside the clip helps to level the adjacent tiles. The prior art device has some cumbersomes which decrease the speed of operation and the quality of final product.
One important one is the alignment of the corners of two or three neighboring tiles, in particular if the tiles are not all square. For example, in installing triangular tiles, at least three tiles have to be aligned at their meeting point.
Another factor that affects the quality of the installment is the contraction and expansion of the mortar when it dries. The contraction and expansion of the mortar can cause misalignment of the tiles. The current tile leveling devices do not consider the mortar contraction and expansion after drying, and therefore, cannot prevent such effects.
Another issue with the currently used tile adjustment devices is that they require the tile setters to use a rubber hammer to level and adjust the tiles on the floor or the wall. This may cause damage to the surface of the tile, or a premature breaking of the tile, or even cause some micro-cracks inside the tiles, which may not be visible at the time of installation, but may grow overtime.
The presently available tile leveling and adjusting devices are designed for smaller size tiles. They fail when used on Large Format Tile (LFT). The current leveling devices may allow one tile to slide over the other. A device that can be used for all different sizes is needed. Another problem with current devices is that they result in an empty spots between the base and the tile, which may cause damage to the tile.
Once the tile is leveled, the clip of the leveling device has to be removed. Another issue with the currently used leveling devices is that they do not have any provisions to facilitate easy removal of the clip. The clip is broken by forcing it, which may cause damage to the installed tiles.
Many of the tile leveling devices incorporates a set of teeth on the top surface of the wedge. The clip is set in between two tiles, and the wedge is inserted into the top opening of the clip and forced in to make sure the two neighboring tiles are leveled. The force needed to push the wedge inward and level the tiles may be so large that it may break the clip. To prevent the breakage of the clip, the prior art discloses a special type of plyer that holds the clip while inserting the wedge. The presently disclosed invention does not require a plyer.
Therefore, there is a need for a new device to level tiles of any size, shape and design that is easy to use and eliminates the issued mentioned above.